em Monstrelet observes, is larger than the towns of Corbeil or Montferrand. Though the modes of attack and of defence were uniform throughout Europe, yet there are many diversities in the castellated architecture of different states. The Scottish peels and towers remind us of the baronial manoirs of Flanders. În Ireland, the ' battled battlements,' which are found equally in ecclesiastical and military structures, seem to be copied from the Arabian mosque of Cordova. Battlements rarely cover the towers of France or Germany. They are covered by conical roofs, rising from a machicollated parapet, which projects very boldly. There are some instances in which the roofs are formed of horizontal layers of stone, after the fashion of the round towers of Ireland. Such is the tower attributed to Queen Bertha of Burgundy, at Orbe, in the Canton de Vaud. It bears an additional resemblance to the Irish towers in the position of the door, mid-way up the height of the building. The dungeon-towers are not unfrequently of comparatively small diameter, but very lofty. Buffon's tower, at Moutbard, which is of this description, is finely built, and in excellent preservation. At Provins, the native habitat of the Provence rose, the dungeon is surrounded at its base by a very massy circular wall, which the townspeople call Le paté des Anglois, because it was 'built by the English.' The dungeon itself branches in the second story into four turrets, with a larger central tower. In Spain, if we may judge from the views of Mr. Bankes, who has drawn almost every remarkable building in the Peninsula, the old fortresses bear an unexampled appearance of chivalrous magnificence. Castellated palaces, such as held Miraguarda and her meisney,' arose from the mixture of Gothic and Moorish architecture. Varandas supported by jasper pillars, richly wreathed and knotted, jut from the sides of the towers, the angles are broken by bartizans whose roofs are swelling domes, and the walls are encircled, instead of battlements, with ranges of emblazoned shields, hung out, as it were, in perpetual defiance. The castle of Benevente, in Gallicia, which realized the most fanciful descriptions of romance, was destroyed by Buonaparte. He slept there, and on the following morning, in return for the hospitality which he had received from the Countess, he ordered it to be fired. The building was of no importance as a military position, and its destruction could only result from the wanton barbarity which the French ever display. A history of the civil and domestic architecture of the Middle Ages is yet a desideratum. Unless this task is soon accomplished in England, the opportunity will be lost for ever. The halls of Elizabeth's days are almost worn out. The mansions of the time of Charles the First are falling apace, and in every quarter of a century century a class must disappear, by the conjoined operations of repair and decay. The towns of England perhaps afford the worst and poorest specimens of the dwelling-house: the best and richest are found in the Netherlands. We can hardly qualify this assertion by recollecting the magnificent range of palaces which bordered the Strand in the reign of Henry VIII. Our old dwellinghouses are usually composed of timber frames filled in with plaster. Troyes, in Champagne, is built entirely in this fashion, every street is the perfect counterfeit' of old Cheapside. Beauvais is built in the same manner, but the houses are profusely varied with carving, and a good artist might employ himself there for a twelvemonth. Many of the ancient houses at Caeu are of chesnut timber. The Abbé de la Rue supposes that they were built by the English, after the place was taken by Henry V. in 1417. His 'bombards' destroyed a great part of the town during the siege; and after he had regained possession, he granted the sites of the demolished tenements to his English subjects. In choosing this material, they may have been guided partly by choice, as being a domestic fashion, and partly by necessity; for the use of stone was restricted by Henry to the building and repairing of'eglises, chasteaulx, et forteresses.' The king by letters-patent declared that the 'quarries of white stone' were to remain to him and his heirs for ever: this monopoly proves the value in which the Caen stone was held. About the middle of the fifteenth century, a new order of architecture was invented in France, which was first applied to civil purposes. Soon afterwards, however, it affected ecclesiastical architecture. To this order we give the name of the 'Burgundian ;' because, until we find proofs to the contrary, we shall suppose it originated in the dominions of Philip the Good. No distinct example of it can be dated anterior to his reign, and buildings bearing its characteristics are found in all the states which were united under his authority. Its peculiar features are displayed in Philip's palace at Dijon. The aspect of the great presence-chamber is in unison with the spirit of the people, and seems to declare the lusty character of the prince who held his court there. Splendid and comfortable, rather than grand and impressive, it was intended rather for the disports of the courtiers of the Duke than the assemblage of his barons. The roof is not timber-framed, as in the English halls, but flat, and composed of well squared beams and joists. Large and lofty windows rauge along the north side of the chamber; they are square-headed, and divided into squares by one perpendicular stone mullion and two horizontal transoms. The archivolt is ribbed and reeded. Delicate pillars support the arch. The bases of the pillars, and the plinths beneath the bases, occupy almost a third of their height; and the octagon base unites with the plinths plinths by a kind of spur, which it is not very easy either to draw or to describe. The basement stories are vaulted; circular groins spring out from a central pillar, like the branches of a tree, and rest at the angles of the room. On the exterior, we shall find the building characterised by the surbased pointed arches of the doors. The arch is surmounted by an ogee label, which breaks into a few large foliaged crockets, and spreads at the apex into a very tall finial. Instead of battlements the walls are surmounted by a pierced balustrade. Many of the manuscripts of this century (we may instance the Froissart from whence Mr. Johnes made his tracings) contain representations of the interior and exterior buildings of this style, showing most of its peculiarities with tolerable accuracy. Our English architects appear to have been pleased by some of the features of the Burgundian style. Probably the increased intercourse between England and the good towns of Flanders facilitated its transmission. At Bristol, the porch of St. Stephen's church is completely Burgundian. When adopted in this country, this Burgundian order assumed the well-known and familiar aspect of our Tudor style. Gothic architecture lost much of its pristine beauty under this modification, though we must acknowledge that the French architects understood the way of making it work well. With graceful caprice, they frequently united it to pure pointed architecture, and sometimes it combines with the luxuriant Italian style, which was then just introduced under the patronage of Francis I. A fine specimen of French domestic architecture, at Rouen, is commonly called the Maison de la Pucelle, but the Mansion has no right whatever to that denomination, though it is now used as a boarding-school for young ladies. 'The entire front is divided into compartments by slender and lengthened buttresses and pilasters. The intervening spaces are filled with basso-relievos, evidently executed at one period, though by different masters. A banquet beneath a window in the first floor, is in a good cinque-cento style. Others of the basso-relievos represent the labours of the field and the vineyard; rich and fanciful in their costume, but rather wooden in their design: the Salamander, the emblem of Francis I., appears several times amongst the ornaments, and very conspicuously. I believe there is not a single square foot of this building, which has not been sculptured. On the north side extends a spacious gallery. Here the architecture is rather in Holbein's manner: foliaged and swelling pilasters, like antique candelabra, bound the arched windows. Beneath, is the well-known series of bas-reliefs, executed on marble tablets, representing the interview between Francis I. of France and Henry VIII. of England, in the Champ du Drap d'or, between Guisnes and Ardres. These sculptures are much mutilated, and so obscured by smoke and dirt, that the details cannot be understood without great dif ficulty. ficulty. The corresponding tablets above the windows are even in a worse condition; and they appear to have been almost unintelligible in the time of Montfaucon, who conjectures that they were allegorical, and probably intended to represent the triumph of religion. Each tablet contains a triumphal car, drawn by different animals, one by elephants, another by lions, and so on, and crowded with mythological figures and attributes. It is probable that the subjects are either taken from the Triumphs of Petrarch, or imitated from the triumphs introduced in the Polifilo. Graphic representations of allegories are susceptible of so many variations, that an artist, embodying the ideas of the poet, might produce a representation bearing a close resemblance to the mythological processions of the mystic dream. The gallery sculptures are very fine, and the upper tier is much in the style of Jean Goujon. It is not generally known that Goujon re-drew the embellishments of Beroald de Verville's translation of the Polifilo; and that these, beautiful as they are in the Aldine edition, acquired new graces from the French artist. I have remarked, that the allegorical tablets appear to coincide with the designs of the Polifilo: a more accurate examination might, perhaps, prove the fact; and then little doubt would remain. The building is much dilapidated; and; unless speedily repaired, these basso-relievos, which would adorn any museum, will utterly perish. In the adjoining house, once probably a part of the same, but now an inn, bearing the sign of La Pucelle, is shown a circular room, much ornamented, with a handsome oriel conspicuous on the outside. In this apartment the maid is said to have been tried; but it is quite certain that not a stone of the building was then out of the quarry.'-Turner, vol. i. pp. 198-201. In the Middle Ages it was seldom that any building was expressly set aside for the reception of courts of justice. The pleas were held in the Palace of the King, in the Hall of the Corporation, at the gate of the castle. The noble Palais de Justice, at Rouen, is almost a solitary exception to this remark. Mr. Turner has described it minutely, but not with more detail than this historical edifice de serves. 'Amongst the secular buildings of Rouen, the Palais de Justice holds the chief place, whether we consider the magnificence of the building, or the importance of the assemblies which once were convened within its precinct. 'The Palace forms three sides of a quadrangle. The fourth is occupied by an embattled wall and an elaborate gateway. The building was erected about the beginning of the 16th century; and, with all its faults, it is a fine adaptation of Gothic architecture to civil purposes. The windows in the body of the building take flattened elliptic heads; and they are divided by one mullion and one transom. mouldings are highly wrought, and enriched with foliage. The lucarne windows are of a different design, and form the most characteristic feature of the front: they are pointed and enriched with mullions and tracery, and are placed within triple canopies of nearly the The same same form, flanked by square pillars, terminating in tall crocketed pinnacles, some of them fronted with open arches crowned with statues. The roof, as is usual in French and Flemish buildings of this date, is of a very high pitch, and harmonizes well with the proportions of the building. An oriel, or rather tower, of enriched workmanship, projects into the court, and varies the elevation. On the left hand side of the court, a wide flight of steps leads to the hall called la Salle des Procureurs, a place originally designed as an Exchange for the merchants of the city, who had previously been in the habit of assembling for that purpose in the cathedral. It is 160 feet in length, by 50 in breadth. "In this great hall, (says Peter Heylin,) are the seats and desks of the procurators; every one's name written in capital letters over his head. These procurators are like our attornies; they prepare causes, and make them ready for the advocates. In this hall do suitors use, either to attend on, or to walk up and down, and confer with their pleders." The attornies had similar seats in the ancient English courts of justice; and these seats still remain in the hall at Westminster, in which the Court of Exchequer now holds its sittings. The walls of the Salle des Procureurs are adorned with chaste niches. The coved roof is of timber, plain and bold, and destitute either of the open tie-beams and arches, or the knot-work and cross-timber which adorn our old English roofs. Heylin, who saw the building when it was in perfection, says, speaking of the Great Chamber in which the parliament held its sittings, that it is so gallantly and richly built, that I must needs confess it surpasseth all the rooms that ever I saw in my life. The palace of the Louvre hath nothing in it comparable; the ceiling is all inlaid with gold, yet doth the workmanship exceed the matter." The ceiling which excited Heylin's admiration still exists. It is a grand specimen of the interior decoration of the times. The oak, which age has rendered almost as dark as ebony, is divided into compartments, covered with rich but whimsical carving, and relieved with abundance of gold. Over the bench is a curious old picture, a Crucifixion. Joseph and the Virgin are standing by the cross: the figures are painted on a gold ground; the colours deep and rich; the drawing, particularly in the arms, indifferent; the expression of the faces good. It was upon this picture that witnesses took the oaths before the revolution; and it is the only one of the six formerly in this situation that escaped destruction. Round the apartment are sentences in letters of gold, reminding judges, juries, witnesses, and suitors, of their duties. The room itself is said to be the most beautiful in France for its proportions and quantity of light. In the Antiquités Nationales, is described and figured an elaborately wrought chimney-piece in the council-chamber, now destroyed, as are some fine Gothic door-ways, which opened into the chamber.'-Turner, vol. i. pp. 189–194. Normandy contains much Gothic architecture of transcendent beauty. Taken all in all, the Abbey Church of St. Ouen claims the pre-eminence. We shall always regard this noble minster con amore, and view its porches, and buttresses, and tracery, with as much |